Galthran's Spell Power stat was 4, meaning that until the third round, the blinded Marksmen remained in a state where they were unable to attack.
Wayne once again opened Galthran's spellbook and cast "Animate Dead" on the Dread Knights.
A mass of greyish-black shadows gathered, and the fallen Dread Knight actually stood back up, steed and all!
Verdan completely broke down this time...
However, Wayne didn't intend to leave him any chance for a counterattack. Relying on the Dread Knights' immense health, while they cut down 10 Halberdiers, they also withstood the retaliation of the remaining 43 Halberdiers.
The Halberdiers, having lost their chance to counter, were directly brought down by two stacks of Skeletons attacking in turns...
After the remaining stack of Skeletons cut down a single-unit Halberdier fodder stack, Verdan's remaining forces on the battlefield consisted of only 1 Halberdier and those 38 Marksmen who had yet to deal a single point of damage.
His teammates urged him to surrender quickly so he could at least preserve those 38 Marksmen. But in his effort to defend against Wayne, Verdan had recruited every extra troop available in the city before the war started. Now, with only 300-plus gold coins left, it wasn't nearly enough to pay for a surrender.
He used Lightning Bolt again, but this time he targeted the stack of 98 Skeletons (originally 120, with 22 dead).
The spell dealt 110 damage, killing 18 Skeletons and leaving 80.
With that, the third round ended. The situation was 38 Marksmen and 1 Halberdier against 4 Dread Knights and 322 Skeletons.
On the side of the seven-player team, they felt this battle was unbearable to watch. Although Verdan's secondary hero still had some Monks and Crusaders, his main strength had been gutted.
On Wayne's side, however, he was also feeling the sting.
Losing 49 Skeletons was quite painful!
As soon as the new round began, he cast Animate Dead again on the stack of 80 Skeletons.
Without the bonus of Intermediate or Expert Earth Magic, the spell's base restoration was limited. However, even at basic level, it was enough to bring back several units.
In other words, this stack that originally had 120 Skeletons was now back up to 118...
Verdan looked at his still-immobile Marksmen, took off his glasses, and rubbed the bridge of his nose with his fingers, trying his best to calm his resentment and anger.
"I'm done, I'm done! This is impossible! Even when Stratholme fell, those Undead Scourge weren't as perverted as Old Mil!"
He shouted directly in the net cafe.
Hearing Verdan mention "Stratholme," Dughan, who was watching the screen from the side, swallowed hard. He couldn't help but think to himself:
"Too similar... it's really too similar..."
"To see such terrifying death power in this kid's net cafe..."
"This must be how Lordaeron fell under that power of death back then..."
But things were far from over.
While Marksmen had a very high cost-performance ratio and significant output when in large numbers, their defense as Tier 2 units was extremely low—a mere 3 points. This meant they would suffer heavy losses once closed in on by powerful melee units.
Furthermore, their damage output was halved in melee combat.
Wayne's two stacks of Skeletons each went up and delivered a strike, cutting down all 38 Marksmen. The Marksmen's retaliation only killed 5 Skeletons.
Then the Dread Knights moved forward and cut down the last Halberdier, ending the battle.
Valeska betrayed Verdan as the army was wiped out, while Galthran secured a major victory, losing only 16 Skeletons in total.
Interestingly, this battle not only leveled Galthran up twice—bringing both Earth Magic and Tactics to Intermediate level—but also yielded two captured artifacts.
Wayne had never expected to get these two extremely important artifacts from Verdan. One could even say these two items would determine whether the rest of the game would be a 1-versus-7 struggle or a 1-versus-7 slaughter.
Just as Verdan's teammates were feeling frustrated and uneasy, something even more frightening appeared before their eyes.
Under the influence of Galthran's Necromancy, the corpses of the Halberdiers, Marksmen, and even the Griffins lying on the ground began to undergo a mutation.
A portion of the corpses stood back up, but their pupils had turned blood-red. Simultaneously, their flesh rapidly lost its color upon being tainted by the dark aura, turning into withered dust that fell away with the wind until white bone was exposed, becoming converted Skeletons.
The Griffin bones pieced themselves back together, becoming Skeleton Warriors with bizarre forms and movements, marching into Galthran's army alongside the other "recruits."
In the end, these corpses were converted into 41 Skeletons...
At this point, not only did Verdan want to vomit blood, but even his teammates felt speechless.
After this fight, Verdan had "managed" to kill 16 Skeletons at the cost of his entire army. Yet when the battle ended, the total count of Wayne's forces had actually increased by 25 instead of decreasing.
This meant that without an absolute numerical advantage, blindly engaging Wayne like Verdan did would only allow Wayne to sustain his war through more war, growing stronger with every fight.
With his mentality collapsed, his economy bottomed out, his main force lost, and Wayne closing in on his capital city, Verdan chose to forfeit. He had his secondary hero take the remaining 6 Monks and 24 Crusaders and run toward Amy's nearby capital. He "gifted" these troops to Amy before the 7-day timer for losing all towns expired, then was judged as defeated by the system, officially exiting the game.
Wayne also took off his glasses and comforted Verdan, suggesting he play the single-player campaign mode to fully familiarize himself with the game's lore and the combinations of units, spells, and artifacts.
Verdan agreed verbally, but he couldn't swallow his pride. Once Wayne returned to the game, Verdan acted as a spectator, constantly reporting Wayne's movements and troop strength to the others through the screen, forcing Wayne to simply turn off his monitor display.
On the other side, the six people began to deliberate. They unanimously judged that after taking out Verdan, Wayne would continue to move through the positions to find his next target without stopping.
And it was impossible for any one of them to withstand Wayne.
Although Hicks and others suggested concentrating their forces to have a final showdown with Wayne using their combined numerical advantage, Hudson and Jyssetta opposed this.
First, they didn't know Wayne's exact location. The map was so large that a wrong judgment would leave the players who had given up their troops easily defeated by Wayne.
Second, Wayne's main force was simply too powerful. In the previous battle, Verdan's army wasn't small, but the final trade ratio was too exaggerated—and the main factor was the magic.
Finally, Amy proposed a bold suggestion.
The six players would send out two teams of heroes, each carrying half of the main forces to gather at the front lines. Once Wayne's position was determined, the sturdy units like Halberdiers, Crusaders, and Cavaliers would gather to stall Wayne as much as possible, slowing his advance.
Meanwhile, the remaining offensive units—the two ranged units (Marksmen and Zealots) and the two flying units (Griffins and Archangels)—would concentrate in one place and strike directly at Wayne's home base.
Everyone felt this was reasonable. After all, the longer they waited, the more Skeletons Wayne would convert through Necromancy. By then, combined with the resurrection power of Animate Dead, no single player would stand a chance against him.
Thus, the human alliance's counterattack plan began to be implemented.